Conservative group threatens UC Berkeley over Ann Coulter appearance

Carrie Doyle | April 27, 2017, 1:40

May 2 is when students on campus will be taking final exams.

Berkeley has been criticized for canceling the two speakers despite the campus's historic role as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Coulter responded that she planned to keep her original date.

"We are dismayed that your letter suggests a disregard of the professional judgment of law enforcement regarding security concerns", Chief Counsel Christopher Patti wrote in the letter, "but we stand ready to work with BCR to find a date, time and venue where its rights and campus security can be maximized".

"UC Berkeley may not censor speech its administrators plainly disfavor, simply because a potential mob shares the administrators' distaste", the letter said.

Coulter, in a post on her Twitter account after 1 p.m., said she had agreed to the university's conditions "not to call their bluff, but because I wanted to speak".

However, Coulter isn't cool with the change and still plans to appear at Berkeley on April 27, the Washington Post reported.

"So I'm planning on speaking on the 27th as scheduled".

Good on Ann! Earlier the UC-Berkeley administration canceled a planned February 1 speech by conservative activist Milo Yiannopoulos after a violent campus riot by leftists that local police seemed to do little to stop. "We have been unable to find a safe and suitable venue for your planned April 27 event featuring Ann Coulter", Berkeley's vice chancellors told the two groups who were set to co-host the event.

Coulter received some unexpected backing from left-leaning Berkeley professor Robert Reich, who called the cancellation a "grave mistake".

Coulter said the school attached a series of conditions to the April 27 appearance: She had to deliver her speech in the afternoon, only students could attend and the venue would not be announced until close to the event.

At Berkeley, university officials said the recent violence has caused them to rethink where and when to hold such events.

Violent protests broke out at Berkeley College when former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos visited in February.

According to the report, Coulter and the organizing group on campus are refusing the new invitation.

On Saturday, protests again turned violent - though in the city of Berkeley, not the university campus - as pro-Trump and anti-Trump protesters clashed in the streets. He said universities should "do everything possible to foster and protect" free speech, writing that students should be allowed to hear Coulter's arguments and question them.

"Unfortunately, UCPD determined that, given now active security threats, it is not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully - or that the safety of Ms. Coulter, the event sponsors, audience, and bystanders could be adequately protected - at any of the campus venues available on April 27", the letter said.

ANN COULTER: None of this has to do with security. "I've acceded to all their silly demands, which they thought would end it".